Lexmark Z51

With only two lights on the machine itself, most information is provided by the excellent control panel, which lists the time elapsed and job progress as well as containing buttons to cancel and pause print jobs. It also allows you to clean print nozzles, align cartridges and gives a rough idea of ink levels so you can see when you're about to run out. When the ink cartridges do dry up, there's a button that takes you directly to Lexmark's on-line shop to buy replacements.

A problem with the drivers meant that the printer kept detecting new ink cartridges that we hadn't installed, but assuring it that both cartridges were old seemed to solve this. However, the original problem had the knock-on effect of causing a loss of alignment between the black and colour cartridges, resulting in noticeable colour mismatch. Re-aligning only took a couple of minutes, but it's still annoying and will hopefully be ironed out in future driver releases.

Despite the Lexmark Z51's problems, which don't help it in its battle against the Epson Stylus Photo 750, there's no doubt that it is a worthy, all-round contender. It's able to boast superior text quality, impressive photo output and a reasonable turn of speed. Unfortunately for Lexmark, it needs to produce something a little more special to topple the Stylus Photo 750 from the A List.

Author: Tim Danton